land, but the land for the sake of the sea; it
was on the whole contemptible to be ignorant
as to all things nautical, but by no means so to
be unacquainted with everything else.

The solid and splendid qualities of these
veterans did so much for England, that it is not
without tenderness that one bids their ideas
good-by. But times and the peace spared
nobody, and for thirty or forty years the story of
the British navy has been the story of change.
The world drew the service closer to it when it
wanted it no longer for blockades and for
convoys, and the new generations coming up
modified the personnel of the profession. Then
came steam, and improvements in the service of
war, and discoveries (represented by names like
that of the American Maury), opening to us
newer and grander views of the laws of winds
and ocean-currents, and the great mysteries of
the deep. Meanwhile, book-knowledge of all
kinds kept spreading itself through English life,
and modifying it in every muscle and fibre. The
service was clearly changing in spite of itself,
as spontaneous adoptions of new manners and
ideas showed. Was the new age to be
recognised formally by the governing system of the
service, or was the service to be left to itself?
Here was the question, looked at for a time
only by our Admiralties, presently handled with
more or less of decisiveness, at last partially
answered by the adoption of the training-ship
system, and other innovations of which we here
purpose to speak. They did not set about
answering it a bit too soon, for both France
and Russia had shown their appreciation
of its importance in a sufficiently explicit
manner.

What, then, was the duty to be carried out in
reforming our naval education? Simply this:
the establishment of a higher scale of attainments
among our officers, by tests on entry,
increased instruction, and repeated examinations.
The necessity of the case admitted of no question,
and not of much delay. Refuse to see
that it was necessary to know more than
Trunnion, and what right had you to expect
superiority over enemies more accomplished
than his?

So, to begin with, the Admiralty very
properly increased, a few years back, the
difficulty of the preliminary examination for
youngsters joining. It was a farce, within the
memory and experience of those who are still
young men. You went on board the Guardship
with your respectable parent or other
persons; and full of the natural wonder of
boyhood, found yourself in the ward-room. You
were then asked to write a sentence or so of
your mother-tongue, and if that was achieved
respectably, you had " passed." For a gentleman's
son ætat 13-14, such a standard of
acquirements was indeed ludicrous. There is a
vast improvement in this point just now. The
aspiring lad must now present himself at the
Naval College (Portsmouth), and satisfy his
examiners, not merely that he can write English,
but that he can read, translate, and parse an
easy passage either from a Latin or French
author; that he knows the leading facts of
Scripture and English history; that he has some
acquaintance with modern geography,
arithmetic, algebra, and the first book of Euclid.
Considering that every likely lad begins to learn
at six, and that the navy is officered from
well-to-do families, with the means of educating their
children, we cannot say that this is too much to
expect from boys twelve to fourteen. Yet a
fourth part of those who come up are regularly
"plucked." Do we lose much by those who
finally fail to enter on such terms? We do,
perhaps, lose some brave fellows who might
prove good officers of a kind; but that (the test
being known beforehand) we lose any number
of superior capacities, is highly improbable.
The answer to those who tell us that Nelson
might have " missed stays" at such an examination,
is, that a lad of his brains and ambition
would have prepared himself, had he known
there was such an inevitable trial to pass
through before his early activity could get its
"chance."

Once passed, the youngster is sent on board
the training-ship Britannia for six, nine, or
twelve months, according as his age varies from
fourteen and a half to thirteen years.

The training-ship system was established by
Admiralty Circular on the first of September,
1857, and first brought into play on board the
Illustrious. That vessel was superseded by the
larger and more convenient Britannia, under the
same captain — Captain Harris — " the right man
in the right place," says the "Naval Peer,"
emphatically; an officer, in fact, of a great deal
of active service and experience, with all the
knowledge, tact, and temper necessary for a post
not only difficult but delicate. Let us go on
board the Britannia, look about us a little, and
try and form a clear notion of the work going on
there.

On reaching the upper deck (we have entered
at the middle deck, as is the way in
three-deckers) the first thing that seizes one's
attention is a bevy of lads exercising. Clad in blue
frocks and blanket trousers, these youngsters are
learning to reef and furl sails, some on the
mizen-topsail yard, and some on the " monkey-yard"
rigged for the purpose. As there is a
youngster to every "top" in her Majesty's
ships, whose business it is to see the men do
their work aloft, the advantage of this exercise
(to say nothing of its healthfulness) is obvious.
Accidents, meanwhile — for the lads are very
young — are provided against by a friendly
netting across the poop, which would break your
fall if you came from ever so far. A portion of
the whole cadets now on board — a hundred and
sixteen — are always at " exercise," while the
other portion is at "study." For they are
divided into watches and classes, each of which
takes its turn at the various occupations which
fill up the seven hours and a half of daily work.
The general routine of the training-ship, it may
be as well to state here, is as follows:

6 A.M.. Lash up hammocks. (To every three